


I think therefore I'm not

by vikinged



Category: Wild Adapter
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:11:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8454844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vikinged/pseuds/vikinged
Summary: It's the simple answers. Or: Tokito vs. philosophy.





	

1.

He tried keeping a diary once:

> 09/10 - Monday
> 
> Woke up at 7am. Had cereal for breakfast. Bought coffee at 7/11 and drank it on the way to school.
> 
> Fell asleep during first period. Sat in the back of class and played on the gameboy for the rest of the day.
> 
> Went to an arcade after school. Stayed there for four hours. Beat several old high scores.
> 
> Went home. Did some homework. Went to bed at 11pm.

After three weeks of entries just like that one, he started a fire behind the school and burned the thing.

Somehow it felt too personal.

***

"So how do we know we're really alive?" asked the philosophy teacher. A discussion started in class, and for once he paid attention, carefully writing down each answer until he'd filled nearly half his notebook.

"I know I'm alive when I'm with my friends," one girl said.

"I know I'm alive when I'm playing tennis, and I'm so tired that I think I might pass out but just keep playing anyway," another answered.

The rest were mostly similar.

At the end of the lesson, the teacher told them to write an essay about it. She quoted an old philosopher at them: _Cogito Ergo Sum._ I think therefore I am.

And he thought for hours, sitting in a corner of his bedroom and chewing on the end of his pen. He was pretty sure he spent more time thinking than anyone in his class, and he still couldn't come up with a single answer to that question.

He never handed in that essay.

***

His childhood was filled with memories like that. They blurred into each other, each no more distinctive than the next, until it made his chest hurt trying to think about it.

Memories were empty, meaningless, and the future was unknown, so he focused on the now instead. He played video games for a week straight until Kasai broke down his door, threatening to take away his TV if he didn't eat something.

He smiled and lit a smoke and didn't say anything. It would probably make it easier for Kasai if he did starve to death, even with the police investigation that was sure to follow. Instead he caved and ate some soup and Kasai stayed with him for two hours, playing Mario Kart against him even though he never won. Neither of them said a word, covering up the silence by focusing on the TV screen so hard that their eyes began to water.

The next day Kasai didn't come home from work until late. The day after that he stayed gone even longer.

He shrugged and took the hint, finding himself an apartment and moving out without a word.

***

He had dreams, sometimes.

He remembered one where he'd been sitting in the street, watching people walk by in all directions. He'd been black and white and not breathing and they'd all been so colorful it had nearly blinded him.

He shielded his eyes and looked around, trying to find someone else like himself, but there wasn't anyone.

No one noticed him sitting there. He didn't mind.

 

2.

He finds a cat in an alley.

He's slightly big, and very heavy, but he throws the cat over his shoulder and carries him home anyway. Home is an apartment that feels like it's never been lived in. There are books, and he's read them all, and video games, but he's finished them all. There are CDs that he listened to once and then forgot about. There's furniture, a TV, several video game consoles. The cupboards are stocked with food because he never knows what he might want.

There are no pictures on the walls, and the windows are covered up with cheap blinds. He bought a plant once, but he forgot about it until it withered and died, and it was weeks before he noticed and threw it out. The apartment is spotless, save for the one video game he'd been playing earlier, left out next to the TV. He doesn't look around as he walks inside, instead going straight to the bedroom, laying the cat down on his bed.

That evening he sits listening to the cat breathe. In, out, in, out; a little too slowly. He tries timing it with his watch, but the breaths are too slow to count in seconds. He tries timing it with his own breathing, but after a few minutes his lungs are hurting from lack of air.

He lights a cigarette and watches the cat, brushes some hair from his forehead, exhales smoke into the room.

An hour later he tries to sleep, but the quiet sound of the cat's breathing echoes through the apartment and his head, until each inhale feels like it's drawing the air straight from his own lungs.

***

He wakes up every day surprised that the cat is still there.

He can't play video games all day now, because he has to make sure his cat is properly fed. He goes out in the middle of the night to buy gum and never questions the demands, even though they could just as well have waited until morning.

He doesn't know what to do with a cat, so he sits and watches and waits for the apartment to be empty again.

***

He has nightmares, sometimes.

In them, there is nothing but darkness, stretching out forever. It feels empty and quiet and exactly like home, and when he looks down, he can't see himself either.

 

3.

Cats are naturally curious, and he finds his in his closet one day, going through a box containing old essays. He'd been meaning to burn those, but he'd forgotten about it until now, so he leans against the door and watches as his cat reads.

"These answers are stupid!" he says, holding up a notebook. "Being with your friends doesn't make you alive. It just makes you not lonely!"

He doesn't say anything, just watches his cat flip through all the answers, brow furrowed in concentration. Finally he reaches the end, and the few empty pages where his own essay should have been.

"Hey, where's your answer?"

He shrugs.

"That can't have been a real teacher though, if she asked that. Of course I'm alive -- it's not like I died yet!"

He thinks that might have been the best answer of them all.

***

"Kubo-chan," the cat calls him. He's loud and honest and always there, even when he closes his eyes. He's warm and heavy, his weight pressing him into the mattress, and his breath is moist against his neck. "Hey, Kubo-chan!"

"Mm," he replies, lifting a hand up to run through the cat's hair until he feels him sigh against his skin.

"Why isn't my name on the door?"

He blinks, surprised by the question.

"It's my home too, right?!"

"Yes, yes," he says, sensing another tantrum if he doesn't oblige. The word 'home' feels unfamiliar suddenly, and something tightens in his chest as he tries to make sense of it. The cat just settles down on top of him, a satisfied smile on his lips now, and he watches him like that for a long moment.

It's an invasion. He invited him in, but he took over. In the living room, spread out over the floor, is the cat's plan for a manga that will be "so much better than that Naruto crap". On the walls there's a poster he bought for his favorite video game, a few odd drawings, and there's a small whiteboard where they can leave notes for each other. There's a jacket on the floor out in the hallway and socks hanging out of the drawers in the bedroom; there are dirty dishes in the most unexpected places.

The cat has left his mark all over the apartment.

He doesn't tell him that, but instead watches as his breathing evens out, the cat finally dozing with his head nestled on his chest and one hand curling into the fabric of his shirt.

***

He closes his eyes and sees nothing. There's darkness everywhere, empty and dead, so familiar and so much like home.

He panics until he hears soft breathing, and he realizes that the weight pressing down on his chest is something else. The warmth around him is his cat, wrapped around him like a heavy blanket until he's taking up all of his senses.

It's been over a year, and he's still there, so he lets his hand comb through soft hair and sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic around eight years ago, for an exchange on livejournal. Blame any inconsistencies with recent canon on that.


End file.
